Hey everyone… I’m new to this community and very interested in the 3D revolution taking place. I would like to get my first 3D printer and am thinking about the QU-BD one or two up vs. the printrbot shown on Kickstarter… any advice on which may be better as far as print quality & mechanical dependability? I would even consider a reprap, though I’m not sure on how dependable & available that avenue is… thanks in advance.
The QU-BD one up suffers from z wobble, as one of our posters have demonstrated. Look through the past posts, you should be able to find it. It’s fixable with a printed part though, so maybe not so big of a deal. You can’t really compare them right now because the one up JUST came out. But the Printrbot has been around for a long time, and some of the Printrbot team hang out here from time to time.
The printrbot on kickstarter is loooooooong over with. They sell a bunch of different variations of their machine, each with slightly more features than the next. I’ve seen the printrbot print out some good quality stuff, so I’d probably have to push you more towards them over QU-BD at this point.
Thanks for the reply Anthony… I’m really new to all this and was leaning toward the printrbot actually. Now about the reprap community… the idea of someone sending you a kit and you then build it and pay it forward by printing someone else a kit… is this really happening? Really cool idea and love the idea of a community working together like that!
There used to be a need for that, but largely it doesn’t happen all that often any longer as far as I can tell. It still does, just a lot of poeple simply buy plastic pieces off of ebay, because they’re pretty cheap and it’s just easier to coordinate that way.
Alright, good to know… thanks!
The z wobble is gone with the simple fix that I designed. It still has a slight sagging of the gantry. About 3 degrees or so. Still, I have to say that I am reasonably happy for what I got for my $200.
Take a look at http://toybuilderlabs.com/blog for info on the One Up.
I love my printrbot simple (two exceptions, the humidity changes daily here do I need to level the bed alot, and the volume is small)
But I have no experience with the qu-bd. In either case you will learn how to print, and learn what you want in the future (ie most of the things I want to make are about.20 mm bigger then my simple will print nicely)
Note the simple took 4 days to get to my house after I ordered.
Thanks for the input everyone. Camerin hahn… when you say the “volume is small” what do you mean by that? The print size of the objects? Also did you buy your printrbot assembled?
I would recommend building it yourself. it allows you to know how to fix it when it breaks.
The usable volume is about 90x90x100mm alot of the things i want to print would turn out better if i could make them bigger (ie text)
Can anyone recommend a good software program for designing small parts that can be used for 3d printing?.. I’m currently looking at sketchup, freecad and auto desk. Preferably a program that doesn’t require you to export your design into another program before printing.
You’ll always have to export into an STL format in order to slice it before you can print it. Stay away from sketchup, more complicated stuff can quickly become trashed as it doesn’t export or handle STLs natively. FreeCAD is a good one, also take a look at Tinkercad
The One Up is 100 mm X, 83 mm Y, and ~120 mm Z. It is quite a bit smaller in Y then originally promised, but good enough for “fun size” prints.
Quite happy with my Simple. Getting the kit let me learn a lot in a short time. I write a new getting started guide for it here: http://joshondesign.com/2013/12/23/slug
Thanks @ThantiK And when you say slice it… that means making the g code before printing? Thanks also @Joseph_Chiu and @Joshua_Marinacci
an stl is simply a mesh of triangles. basically it describes a volume. a slicer (cura Kiss, slic3r, skeinforge) will make a series of lines(g-code) that will “fill” the volume that volume (actually it will make a parrimiter and fill the inside with a percentage of plastic)
OK, got it. Thanks @Camerin_hahn
I would avoid QU-BD product because they are knowingly putting out bad product in the form of their MB extruder.
They also just took @Brook_Drumm1 / Carl Ubis 's hotend and copied it for their one-up printer, without credit.
Whereas the printrbot guys are genuinely concerned about their customers and release/contribute to the community around them.
Just my opinions…